I finally finished the game

I just assume there are plenty of Boomers like me who played the license plate game while traveling as kids. With no phones, tablets, DVD players, or much else to do in the car except fight over window seats, mom made us play the game before my dad had to “turn the car around and go back home.” We hadn’t even gotten an hour down the road.

Since each state only had one license plate, with distinctive colors and design, they were easy to pick out at a distance. Home state was easy. Neighboring states were common. I grew up in the northeast, so plates from the west coast were really exciting.

We never expected to get to fifty. After all, who’s going to drive here from Hawaii?

The other day, I got to fifty. There in front of me, in Palm Coast, Florida, I saw a license plate from the Aloha State, Hawaii. How cool is that?

How many people transport their car from Hawaii to the mainland with the license plate intact? More than I thought. Today I learned that there are several companies that do just. Average price is a couple thousand dollars. Not too bad. It costs more to ship a car to Hawaii. According to websites, it’s probably cheaper to do that than sell there and buy here.

So I’d have a better chance of completing the license plate game in California than Florida. It only took me about 55 years to finish here on the east coast.